Category Archives: Don’t be THAT guy

This may be the most amazing story we’ve ever posted here: a tale of gross TSA misconduct that doesn’t even involve a TSA employee. Instead, our dreadful sample of security theater comes via a lawyer (quelle surprise!), one Ryan Hemphill, who was such a lowlife that he pretended to be a TSA drone.

“One of the objects we recovered is a baton, looks like a police baton, and inside, if you undo it, is a sword,” prosecutor Sara Weiss said. “He is in multiple videos holding that sword to the neck of blindfolded women, women he, on some occasions, urinates on, while he makes them recite prayers.”

We’d like it on record that, while we do enjoy swords around Hog Manor, we don’t enjoy them in quite the same way.

But gee, this Ryan Hemphill fellow really seems like one of nature’s natural noblemen. (He grew up wealthy, which certainly seems to have made an impression on his character). So what’s he in that part of the court for? You know, the part where the lawyer needs a lawyer (and Hemphill, who is a creep, not a fool, has got a lawyer, one Jason Steinberger)? Well, let’s defer to the Post again:

Hemphill, 33, the son of a pediatric neurologist, is on trial for allegedly assaulting [girlfriend Christina] Leos, with whom he enjoyed S&M sex games at his Murray Hill pad.

[The] Manhattan lawyer who liked to dress as an airport security screener during S&M sessions with his girlfriend wound up choking and threatening her with a knife, prosecutors said Monday.

Christina Leos, a former preschool teacher, described for jurors how her pudgy, bespectacled former boyfriend, Ryan Hemphill, allegedly choked her during one of their rough-sex sessions.

Well Hemphill has certainly done his bit to make pudgy, bespectacled guys more sought after by young women than they have been heretofore.

Note the description of the victim as “former preschool teacher.” When the press want to make an unemployed babysitter look sympathetic, they can!

“It hurt, it scared me, but there was no pain afterwards,” the petite bottle blonde, 32, said in Manhattan Supreme Court.

You’ll have an irresistible urge to wash thoroughly if you Read The Whole Thing™. Another Post story has more details, including more about his creepasmic proclivities, and the fact that he was charged with “Strangulation in the 2nd Degree.” What, degrees? We thought strangulation was one of those things like pregnancy, a yes or no question, but we guess New York law finds distinctions even among the chokers and stranglers.

Maybe 2nd degree is reserved for ligation by litigator.

For the attorneys in our audience: Hofstra Law, and undergrad, honors. And apparently, he hadn’t passed the New York Bar when arrested. You know how it is, though: paint one wall and we don’t call you a painter, but get one lousy law degree and the legal profession is tarred with your every action for life.

As to why Hemphill is represented by Jason Steinberger, we understand that’s because “Better call Saul!” is a fictional character.

A casual look at this Taurus Judge (or similar) might make you think that Bubba the Gunsmith has been gunsmiting [stet] again. But it turns out there’s a reason for this being so smitten: read on, after casting eyes on the Bubbalicious product.

This particular member of the Five Lee Sisters1 does of course look like Bubba has been let loose with the Delrin and aluminum, and a $2 knockoff of a Knight’s Armament Co. foregrip. For what purpose would anyone attach this thing to the gimmick of a gun? Because he wants powder burns and lead splatter in his weak hand’s wrist?

It turns out there is a method in this madness, and the clue to it is in this picture. If you look at the engraving on the gun, it has the Taurus “Judge” name on the barrel, and a different marking on the receiver: OC armory, Laguna Hills, California. That’s because Mike Penhall of OC armory is the Bubba who manufactures this pistol into an NFA “any other weapon.”

Why does Mike do that? Because it’s the only way a Californian can legally own a judge.

Excuse us, a capital-J judge. We don’t think it’s legal to own a small-J judge, even in California’s weird legal system, but we expect judges there are bought and sold just like there are they are anywhere else.

By adding the fore grip, Mike has transformed the pistol into in AOW. Judge pistol? Banned in CA. Judge AOW? A pile of paperwork, a long wait, and a five dollar transfer tax. But legal in CA.

A People’s Republic of Massachusetts company, MarkForged, has taken an interesting position in a dispute with, who else, Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed in Austin, Texas: MarkForged has refused to sell a 3D printer, the Mark One, to Wilson or DD. Its reason? According to its attorney, they fear he will make a gun, and “only the US Government or government contractors can make guns.”

Of course, the US Government hasn’t made a gun since Springfield Armory closed its doors in 1968 (absent some closed-door lab tinkering, which MarkForged apparently doesn’t support, either).

It’s uncertain whether this comes from pure anti-gun animus from the staff of MarkForged; or whether this (like the FedEx/UPS attack on Defense Distributed) is driven by some clandestine Operation Choke Point; or whether their attorney is simply the Judas Goat of The Higher Education Bubble, Legal Department, and is rocking a sheepskin (to mix our ovines and caprines) from the Matchbook University School of Law and HVAC Technology.

What is certain? Wilson is pissed. And he’s not taking “no” for an answer.

(You know, that printer looks like it might be violating a 3D Systems patent on the enclosed print area, especially if they’re rocking any form of climate control. It would be amusing for open source advocates to set a couple closed-source firms’ IP attorneys at each others’ throats).

Wired got a similar tale from the company, and found that they were, shall we say, somewhat integrity-challenged:

In a statement to WIRED, MarkForged cited terms of service that “limit experimentation with ordnance to the United States Government and its authorized contractors.” In fact, the company’s terms of service page doesn’t include that statement. But it does reserve the right for the company to refuse sale to anyone, even after an order is placed.

“Our website automatically took Mr. Wilson’s pre-order, and we certainly regret that we did not catch this sooner,” MarkForged’s statement continues. “We are expediting his refund with interest.”

It’s a free country, and they can sell, or not sell, to whomever they please, of course. And everyone else can buy, or not buy.

There are other questions about MarkForged’s equipment. The guys pimping it in the video on the website are more communications and investment dudes than actual developers — the suits, not the t-shirts. That’s never a good sign, when your initial promo video has at least two guys from your venture capitalists in it. The machine, and its software, appear to require cloud connectivity, which means you can’t use it in an airgapped secure site. So much for using it for R&D on a defense contract. (That central control and storage of software will probably kneecap Wilson, even if he gets a bootleg MarkOne — no way these guys, or their “Government and its authorized contractors,” aren’t coonfingering their customers’ files). Also, they’ve been shipping printers for a while, and yet their web site is full of the sort of glowing but nonspecific testimonials that are used to sell phony diet supplements, penny stocks, and other snake oils. Where’s the real satisfied customers doing real stuff with this thing? They’ve been showing the same rice-boy car cosmetic wing parts for 18 months now, where are the applications?

And finally, there’s the fact that they might just pull the plug on you, and then lie to you and to the press about what their own paperwork says, without even giving you the merest iota of respect that would induce them to Orwell the paperwork into what they’re now saying it always said.

There’s a shakeout coming in the 3D printer world, and few tears will be shed if this firm is one that gets shaken out. But hey, they can always sell to “the United States Government and its authorized contractors.” The ones whose labs are all on the public internet. Oh, wait.

Snowden remains popular in some circles. A Snowden hagiography won Best Documentary at the Oscars, and Oliver Stone is making a film in the Socialist Realism style celebrating Snowden’s life and deeds.

Welcome to the Federal Government, where being the kind of woman who boils rabbits is tolerated for years and years — and then, when you take it too far, gets you 15 months (and counting) paid vacation. Of course, the Federal Air Marshals Service is part of what legendarily inept agency?

At the center of the inquiry is Michelle D’Antonio, 48, who worked for the service for more than a decade until she was placed on administrative leave in December 2013. As a program specialist, she was responsible for coordinating delayed, missed or canceled flights and providing other logistical support, giving her access to sensitive government databases.

Instead, current and former employees say, she used her position to look up personnel files, identification photographs and flight schedules to pinpoint air marshals she was interested in meeting and possibly dating.

For some values of the word “dating.” NTTAWWT.

“She’s a ‘badge bunny’ – a woman who likes to date anybody with a badge,” said Lisa Duron, the newlywed wife of a San Diego-based air marshal, Roy B. Duron, who has acknowledged that he had a four-year affair with D’Antonio.

Oh, but it gets better. D’Antonio was a problem employee from Day 1, over a dozen years ago. Indeed, she was a litigious employee, suing to demand that she be appointed as an air marshal, even though she was over the Fed’s 37-year-old age cutoff for most armed agent jobs, including the FAMS. She lost that one, but department leadership learned to give her lots of room. They also learned something about her integrity. The basis of her suit was a claim she was unfairly denied a job that she not only didn’t qualify for, but could not produce any evidence she had applied for. Ever.

Of course, FAMS is part of the TSA. No one good, decent, honest, competent, moral, ethical or intelligent has ever been employed at TSA in any capacity whatsoever. Q.E.D.

We haven’t heard directly from GG or Defense Distributed or Cody Wilson, but he’s tweeting up a storm on the subject. (Not having heard is irritating, when he’s sitting on four figures of our money. But we’ve received only one of the updates supposedly sent to all hands since purchasing a GG).

Both FedEx and UPS have refused to ship the Ghost Gunner, and there is no convenient common carrier option apart from that shipping duopoly.

The funny thing is this: despite its name and its firearms application, the Ghost Gunner is really a general-purpose, open-source, CNC machine tool. We want it as much to see what ecosystem of fixtures and part files emerges, and to apply to airplane building, as we do as a way to do custom lowers (for which there are already other machines are on hand.

According to the shippers, any machine that might be used by a private party to ship guns is contraband, the law be damned. (It’s suggestive that both carriers reached this unique interpretation at the same moment in time). Does this mean that Sherline, Taig and Miniature Machine Shop will not be able to ship their goods in interstate commerce? (We probably shouldn’t give the Feds, whose threats are no doubt at the bottom of this debacle, any ideas).

Apparently, one part of the “a pen and a phone” system of government that has replaced the obsolete Constitution in latter days is the ability to declare contraband not just things that some politicians don’t like, but machines that can make the things.

One is reminded of the old Communist system, which not only had a media monopoly and pervasive state surveillance, but went so far as the licensing and registration of deadly assault information technology, which in those days meant typewriters and mimeograph machines. Russian dissidents circulated manuscripts copied, sometimes one-at-a-time in the fashion of medieval monks defending knowledge from a new Dark ages, in a cultural phenomenon called samizdat – a term with the denotation of “self publishing” but a connotation of underground, forbidden, risky activity.

FedEx is particularly two-faced in this, as they offer NRA discounts, which is why Cody initially used them. But statements from FedEx spokesman Scott Fiedler to Wired and other online outlets make it clear that the company is fully on-board with the administration here. UPS spox Dan McMackin has confirmed that his firm, too, is firmly in the antigun camp and is pleased to collaborate in Administration anti-gun initiatives.

Wired Magazine’s Andy Greenberg goes all out to give the carriers the benefit of the doubt, but reaches (with the help of anti-gun UCLA professor Adam Winkler, who’s studied and written about gun control in America) an interesting conclusion (and one that Cody Wilson would recognize as suitably bleak for would-be regulators):

FedEx seems to be joining the same club of companies trying to avoid any part in digital DIY gunsmithing. But as more tools like 3-D printers and CNC mills find their way into Americans’ homes, they may have to face the reality that those devices can also create deadly weapons, says UCLA’s Winkler. “It’s going to be very hard to get people to stop using these same devices to make firearms,” he says. “To a certain extent, FedEx will have to get used to shipping gun-making machines.”

There is good news for buyers in this, perhaps: by refusing to deliver the product, FedEx and UPS are in effect insuring you against the project’s failure to deliver. If you never get the product you have paid for, you can add the carriers as defendants to your suit, and recover from their (and their reinsurers’) deep pockets. They want to take a partisan, political position? Let them pay for it.

For More Information:

Ostensible Cody Wilson letter (he did not send this to us, and we are fully-paid purchasers). If this is authentic, it looks like what began as a dispute over rates escalated into an outright ban on shipping, based on what FedEx was told by persons unknown but presumably aligned with the Administration:

A number of young women did, and Padge Windslowe is on trial for the death of one of them. This is hardly the first case of death-by-amateur-plastic-surgeon. One crops up somewhere in the USA — this one’s in Philly, Google finds a few more in Florida — a couple times a year. The victims are usually dull-witted young or youth-obsessed people irrationally attached to unusual ideas of beauty like drag queens, or erotic dancers — NTTAWWT. It’s a free country, and those seem like harmless human variations that no one ought to die for. But die they do — as the perps turn out to be doing their “plastic surgery” with real plastic — industrial silicone sealant and other industrial or food-industry chemicals. One tranny used fix-a-flat.

Yes, you can kill a human being with almost anything.

The Fix-a-Flat company may have to have the legal department draft a “not for boobs or butts” disclaimer.

Padge Victoria Windslowe, 45, is accused of killing Claudia Aderotimi, a 20-year-old dancer from London, during a procedure involving silicone and Krazy Glue.

Police say Windslowe fled after Aderotimi started having trouble breathing during “a touch-up” to celebrate her birthday in February 2011.

The dancer’s death at a hotel near Philadelphia International Airport led police to investigate the underworld of “pumping parties” and underground surgery.

The so-called “Black Madame” admitted to injecting the butts of five women from New York under the business name “Body by Lillian.”

Windslowe told the court she made a lot of money doing the injections.

So, how are they going to account for this one in the FBI crime statistics? It’s not a blunt instrument, although the needle probably wasn’t surgically sharp. They’ll probably call it death by poisoning, but we thought the gastrointestinal tract was usually involved in that… not the direct path from butt boost to brain death that some of these unfortunates seem to have had.

Or, if you’re #Everytown for #gunsense, you can just call it a gun crime. They do it with everything else.

Now, what are the odds that Windslowe’s actually guilty? (Emphasis ours in the following):

An aspiring rapper who performed unlicensed cosmetic surgery on the side has testified at her murder trial that her body sculpting services were so popular that clients called her “the Michelangelo of buttocks injections.”

When were these words ever used in the context of anybody doing anything good or positive? “An aspiring rapper.” Says it all, really.

That seems weird. Normally we associate “sniper” with many things, but “naked” isn’t one of them. There’s a pretty substantial difference between one’s ghillie suit and his birthday suit, and most people smarter than a journalist wouldn’t mistake one for the other.

There’s apparently a naked man on a building rooftop on a sniper perch, with a gun. This according to a Facebook and Twitter account called Palm Beach County Alerts.

According to the alert, numerous Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office and Palm Beach Fire Rescue units are surrounding the area of 1700 S. Federal Highway in Lake Worth. That is the address for the Shangri-La Hotel. The area has been evacuated, according to the report.

A guy listening to the public-safety stations on a scanner — something that’s apparently beyond credentialed “reporters” these days — had an interesting fact or two.

He says police are saying the man is naked and rolling around atop the roof of the building. The man also reportedly has a gun and at least at one point placed the weapon in his mouth.

They never did correct the headline. As the news outlet later admitted they knew at the time, he only had a handgun, and had actually asked someone to call the police, because “I feel delusional, and I’m hallucinating!”

Handgun != sniper. Also, drugs and a handgun and acting out in public != sniper.

Leroy Strothers, 33, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger when police approached him. It didn’t fire, and he never threatened the cops or anyone but himself. The Palm Beach (County) Sheriff’s Office SWAT team ultimately talked him into giving up the gun. In the follow-up story, the paper suggests that Strothers might have fired one shot in the air before the police came.

He also told the officers that he was under the influence of flakka, a designer drug that is vaped with an e-cigarette (not to be confused with “Budder,” another designer street drug which is a wax form of marijuana). Flakka is made with similar ingredients used to make bath salts, the recreational designer drug that’s made headlines recently and is linked to dangerous hallucinations and maybe even responsible for the face-eating incident in Miami, though that’s still being debated.

Flakka, or “Gravel,” which is an a-PVP (or, methylenedioxypyrovalerone) — a hodgepodge mix of chemicals, like sort of a cross between crack cocaine and meth — is becoming widely popular throughout South Florida. It’s cheap, easy to get and reportedly induces behavior in smokers similar to that of meth.

Police have not confirmed if Strothers was on flakka, but he says he was. When PBSO SWAT was able to calm him down and talk him off the roof, Smothers was arrested and transported to JFK Hospital by Palm Beach Fire Rescue for evaluation.

When officers recovered the gun, they found that it was loaded with eight bullets. Police also found a bullet casing on the roof. Some witnesses had reported on social media seeing Strothers firing the gun into the air before police arrived.

Oh, and how do you think the paper described this buck-naked, pistol-wielding druggie? You know it, “Lake Worth Sniper.”

It wasn’t one of those crimes that needed Sherlock Holmes skill levels to solve. The perp was filmed in the act of bicycle theft by a surveillance system. But note the business where he boosted the two-wheeler, it turns out to be germane to his other crime:

Police made the discovery while investigating the theft of a bicycle at Hill Watson Peoples Funeral Service on Hamilton Road.

Smith appeared in Recorders Court for the theft charge and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Then video surveillance footage from the funeral home matched Smith’s description.

So, they had him open-and shut on the bike theft. It was what else they found on the funeral home’s surveillance video that landed Domonique in trouble.

26-year old Domonique Smith was arrested and charged with having sex with a deceased body at a local funeral home.

Police are not releasing the name of the victim but say the family has been notified about the investigation.

Ever sleep in and miss taking the trash out the day the garbage truck comes? Hey, it happens. But you cross over into being that guy when you then decide you can simply use your finely calibrated Norden Brainsight and hit the truck as it passes, with a long garbage bomb, out your window. That was where Manuel Erinna’s problems started, while lining up on the dumpster dragger from overhead:

Detective Capt. Steven Vicente said the victim, Manuel Erinna of 50 Nye St., was attempting to throw trash out the window and into the approaching garbage truck when the accident happened about noontime.

Apparently, this business of throwing your trash at the truck because you’re too lazy to use the stairs is really a thing; in the New York Sanitation Department, it’s called “airmail,” according to the, we are not making this up, department’s official anthropologist. (There’s an artist-in-residence too). Maybe Manuel came from New York.

In any event, Manuel intended to loft his trash in the direction of the truck, but lost his purchase on the window. Manny plunged straight onto the snowy pavement of his New Bedford, Massachusetts street with a bone-shattering crunch. Literally.

About this time, most people’s bad day meter would be pegged on the red line. But things were just warming up for Manuel. Because the truck then backed over him. Thup-thump.

Somebody saw him go under the truck, and her screams alerted the driver that something was amiss. So he pulled forward. Thup-thump.

First responders were called to the scene, and stabilized Manuel, and transported him to a hospital, where he was treated for traumatic shock, concussion, and two broken legs. He’s expected to recover.

No word on who was, “Holding his beer, and watching this!”

But he looked mighty familiar to the cops. Turns out, there was a reason why. Which brings us to our obligatory weapons-based content here:

Erinna was charged in June with beating a cat with an aluminum baseball bat when the animal scratched his ex-girlfriend’s granddaughter. The cat lost an eye in the beating.

Erinna is due in court tomorrow, on that one. That is, if he’s out of the hospital by then. A story in the Examiner says the cat, named Smudge, recovered (to the extent possible) and the piratical one-eyed feline has been adopted by a family with more conventional baseball, and presumably trash, practices.

Moral of story:

Don’t beat on a cat
With a baseball bat
Or your next stroke of luck
Could come from a truck
And you might wind up flat.

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About WeaponsMan

WeaponsMan is a blog about weapons. Primarily ground combat weapons, primarily small arms and man-portable crew-served weapons. The site owner is a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S), and you can expect any guest columnists to be similarly qualified.

Our focus is on weapons: their history, effects and employment. This is not your go-to place for gun laws or gun politics; other people have that covered.

Why WeaponsMan?

A lot of nonsense is written about weapons, especially on the Net. Rather than rail at the nonsense, we thought we'd talk sense instead, and see how that catches on.